I Believe Two Things

“American Airlines, bowing to pressure yesterday from some of its lowest-paid workers, agreed to drop a $2-per-bag fee for curbside check-in service at airports throughout the country and to lift a ban on tips for skycaps at Logan International Airport.” – Boston Globe, 30 May 2008

I wrote about this issue a few weeks ago, when American retaliated against the skycaps (nine of whom won back $325,000 in lost tips in a lawsuit last month) by prohibiting all tipping at Logan. Now, in exchange for the skycaps dropping their charge of retaliation, the airline will allow tipping and get rid of the fee.

Of course, in just two weeks American will begin charging $15 to check even a single bag, so the old $2 fee to check a bag at the curb rather pales in comparison to the $15 it will cost to check one at all. This too will surely cut into the tips of skycaps, since fewer people will check bags at all (as is surely the intent) and those who do will again feel they’ve spent enough on the luxury already without giving their money away in gratuities. Since this fee isn’t levied directly against curbside check-in, I expect skycaps’ only choices will be to accept their new burden or defect to one of the few airlines that still allows checked luggage.

We should be glad American has backed off its ludicrous stance on tipping at Logan, but let’s not throw them a party. They’ve just done what they should have from the beginning. When a toddler finally concedes he can’t eat dessert before dinner we don’t offer a reward of extra cookies, we just announce our approval of his being a good little boy.

“American Airlines, which lost a federal lawsuit filed by skycaps at Logan International Airport over tips they earn, ratcheted up the feud yesterday by imposing a ban on tips at the Boston airport.” – Boston Globe, 2 May 2008

Let me quickly recap the events.

Back in 2004, American Airlines started charging a fee of $2 per bag for checking in bags at the curb. This fee went to the airline, and not its skycaps, but the traveling public tended not to draw the distinction, and tipped less.

True, signs at the curb informed travelers that the fee didn’t include a gratuity, but those signs used comically small lettering. Other signs at airports discuss things like the legal penalties for taking explosive devices onto a 480-ton Boeing 747 with 415 other passengers aboard, so we can forgive a hurried traveler for not paying adequate attention to American’s tiny lettering about gratuities.

Other travelers may have read and disregarded the notice, having already decided what they were willing to pay for curbside check-in. “I’ll pay $5 for this,” such miserly people thought, “even if 40% of it now goes in the airline’s pocket.”

American Airlines advances the reasonable belief that decreasing tips had more to do with decreasing air travel overall than with any fee or airline policy.

The reason isn’t important. Tips fell, and skycaps were angry. Skycaps took the airline to court, and got a verdict in their favor last month. American has to repay $325,000 in lost tips to nine employees.

That was April 17.

Two weeks later, we find that American has prohibited tipping of any kind and has promised disciplinary action to any skycap who accepts money from a passenger.

They raised skycaps’ pay above minimum wage to make the whole thing legal, but the move is still mean-spirited and below the belt. Penalizing skycaps at Logan – and only at Logan – comes off as childish.

I won’t be flying American anymore.